October 2015 Skynotes: Venus and Jupiter

If you look east before sunrise you can see the conjunction which has been happening over the last few weeks. Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and also the Moon appear to be grouped together and even line up. This is an optical illusion as in fact they are very far way from each other but but look this way from the Earth's position in Space.

This is a mosaic and the planets have different exposures as Venus is so bright, so the separation may be very slightly out.

They both look a similar size this is due to an optical illusion – Jupiter is much larger than Venus but it is a lot further away.